7 month old hates bottle and struggles with solids

I have a 7 month old beautiful daughter. I was not able to nurse DD1 exclusively and so I wanted to feed DD2 and have been successfully nursing her for 7.5 months now. EBF for 6 months and then started solids. She likes only the breast and hates bottles. I work from home, so its been ok so far. She doesn't really enjoy solids. She doesnt open her mouth happily. AFter a couple of spoons of forceful feeding, she closes her lips.
Ped suggested to drop one nursing session so that she is more hungry and then give her solids. Ped said BM alone is not nutritious enough and she should be eating solids. What should I do ? She only feeds abt 6 times a day and about 2 times in the night. And out of these 6 times, I would say 3 are very good feedings. I am worried if I drop a feeding she wont be getting enough.
Please help!

Re: 7 month old hates bottle and struggles with solids

I think your pediatrician is giving you questionable (but unfortunately all too common) advice. I'm sure others will chime in here with more detailed info, but I was told that "Solids before 1 are just for fun." Breast milk is most certainly nutritious enough at your daughter's age, and beyond. Breast milk is more calorically dense and nutritionally balanced, ounce for ounce, than the reasonable amount of solids your baby would/could take in at this stage, if she were interested. I have also read (on LLL and elsewhere) that dropping a feeding in order to make baby "hungry enough" for solids is a myth.

I came on these boards when my LO was a little older than yours and still had no interest in solids and was still EBF, thinking we were doing something wrong. The wonderful ladies here reassured me that even though 6 months is a reasonable time to start offering solids, it's very normal for babies to not have an interest in them yet. For what it's worth, mine didn't want much to do with solids until 10-11 months, and even then it was just finger squishing and little tastes then spitting out. I was reassured here that as long as his growth, diapers, overall development, etc are fine, and he seemed happy and sated by nursing, not to stress about the solids intake and just keep offering until baby decided to try it. They were right, and when he DID decide to try it on his own (with soft finger foods), he was pretty enthusiastic about it. You might want to think about backing off the "forceful feeding" ... if her early associations with solids are negative - ie something that's forced on her - it might make her even more reluctant to try them in the future. Also, it seems like some babies just don't like spoon feeding (mine is like that - mr. independent!), and like to self-feed once they have a good pincer grasp and can be in control of what goes in their own mouth.

Re: 7 month old hates bottle and struggles with solids

Total BS from your pediatrician. My kids' pediatrician would tell you that until a year, breastmilk meet's all a baby's nutritional needs, and that solids are just for fun with new tastes, textures, and motor skills. After a year, solids be one an increasingly important part of baby's diet, but the transition from needing only breastmilk to needing a lot of solids is often a slow one, with many babies not eating a majority solids diet until well into their second year. My kids didn't eat a lot of solids until 14-15 months, and were both just fine, not to mention huge!